Abstract: Recent advances in the semisolid casting technologies are introduced for aluminum alloys. The advantages of the rheocast and thixocast methods to fabricate alloys with refined spheroidized α-Al particles are described. The deformation-semisolid-casting (D-SSC) process developed by the author’s group is presented. The D-SSC process is extremely effective to produce microstructures of refined intermetallic compound particles as well as the spheroidized α-Al particles in the Al-Si based alloys containing highly concentrated Fe. In the D-SSC processed Al-Si-Cu alloy high elongation of about 20% was achieved even contained concentrated impurity of Fe. The D-SSC process is also useful to produce wrought aluminum alloys with microstructures of refined α-Al particles.

Key words: Semisolid casting, Rheocast, Thixocast, Aluminum alloys, Intermetallic compound